The debates should be less lively there than in the National Assembly. The debate on the controversial pension reform begins Thursday, March 2 in the afternoon in the Senate and if the right-wing majority is in favor, the left is determined to oppose it.
4,718 amendments, battle of procedures, verbal contests… The 110 hours of discussion planned, that is to say a third more than at the Palais-Bourbon in February according to the right, will they make it possible to reach the final vote before the gong of the March 12 at midnight?
In any case, this is the wish expressed on Wednesday by President Gérard Larcher, for whom “the Senate owes citizens and social partners a debate on the entire text”. Deprived of a vote of the deputies, the executive relies on the Senate to confer democratic legitimacy on a reform which two thirds of the French (66%) do not want, according to an Odoxa poll.
The exchanges will be organized around the strategic March 7, the date of the “blocking” of the country to which the inter-union calls against the decline in the retirement age to 64 years. All the unions of the SNCF and the RATP, in particular, want a renewable strike from this date.
This political and social climate is not at all favorable for the government and its majority. Emmanuel Macron’s popularity rating fell six points in February to its lowest level in three years, with 32% of French people satisfied with his action, according to our Ipsos poll published on Wednesday. That of the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, is also down.
It is the Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, who will give voice again on Thursday to present the text on behalf of the government, alongside the Minister in charge of Public Accounts, Gabriel Attal. “The government hopes that the debate which opens in the Senate will allow to discuss each of the provisions of the bill and thus to have an informed debate on all the articles”, according to Olivier Dussopt.
The deputies, embroiled in heated debates punctuated by repeated session incidents, were only able to fully examine two of the twenty articles of the text in two weeks. It is therefore on the text of the government, barely modified, that the senators will floor. Before embarking on the examination on the merits, they will discuss two motions of rejection en bloc presented by the left, then, probably Friday morning, a request for a referendum. All three will surely be pushed back.
But socialists, communists and ecologists intend to “stand together” to oppose a “tinkered”, “not fair”, “not useful” reform. Contrary to what happened in the Assembly, left-wing senators nevertheless want a vote on Article 7, which pushes back the legal retirement age from 62 to 64. “The French must know who votes and who votes what when it comes to their future,” defends the boss of the PS group, Patrick Kanner.
The left, however, wants the vote on this key article not to take place until the end of the day of mobilization on March 7. At the risk of being criticized for its proximity to the government, the senatorial majority will do everything to get to the end of the text. “We are here to vote,” agrees the president of the majority Renaissance RDPI group, François Patriat.
The right nevertheless intends to defend its “markers”: return to financial balance and family policy. She thus proposes to grant a “surcharge” of pension to mothers who have a full career. A measure amounting to 300 million euros.
“The government has a goal, the senatorial majority, demands. We have to make all this coincide, ”argued in Le Figaro Gérard Larcher. “If we can move forward on family rights with the senatorial majority, I will be the first to be happy,” said Olivier Dussopt.
The senatorial majority also proposes a new CDI formula, exempt from family contributions, to facilitate the hiring of unemployed seniors. The senators also expect clarification from the government on points that have become confused over the announcements and declarations, in the first place long careers, which crystallized the debates in the Assembly.
The first day of debate took place in a much calmer atmosphere than in the National Assembly, the discussion of the highly controversial pension reform project, presented as “concerned with justice” by Olivier Dussopt.
“I know that here there is no ZAD, but the Republic”, launched, in an allusion to the tumult which had reigned in the Assembly, the Minister in charge of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal, causing some stir in the hemicycle.
For this first session, chaired by Gérard Larcher, the President of the Senate started with a “point of order” from the president of the majority communist CRCE group Éliane Assassi, who expressed the “duty” of the left to demonstrate its “opposition the liveliest in this hemicycle”.
